Best movie of this year hands down!

Truly Dreadful Film

Pretty Good

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

After a car accident involving her and her friends, a young woman becomes increasingly unhinged with the belief that someone is stalking her as everyone else around her fails to understand her situation.An absolute piece of junk, which has so many flaws it's hard to know where to start. First off, the twist ending at the end is so blatantly obvious that there's no surprise at all when it's revealed, the tame rating never allows it to do anything and the fact that there's no deaths, no kills or anything at all beyond her acting scared of her shadow makes this one just so boring and dull that it's hard to get excited about anything. Even the fact that the lifestyle that they live out isn't exactly all that interesting is another factor to overcome. Even more depressing, it doesn't have a positive aspect beyond a professional sheen, so overall, this one isn't worth it at all.Rated PG-13: Violence

Starring in some of the earliest roles, Eliza Dushku, Wes Bentley, Luke Wilson, and Casey Affleck appear in this 'Carnival of Souls'-wannabe, 'Soul Survivors'. . .The story focuses on four friends on a road trip to their individual colleges. Along the way, they stop off at a wild rave that is obviously (well, obvious to everyone but our four stars) of some pagan variety (though no one had a problem getting a pagan symbol seared into their hand to enter). After leaving the rave, main girl Cassie (Melissa Sagemiller) decides the best move is to make out with her ex-boyfriend Matt (Bentley) right in front of her current boyfriend Sean (Affleck) five minutes after Sean confessed his love for her. On the road in the pouring rain, Sean and Cassie argue (as expected) about what just went down. This distracts Cassie from the road and causes a serious car wreck which plummets them over a cliff, killing Sean. After that, Cassie returns to school and sees a lot of random weird stuff that is supposed to be scary or confusing, but isn't. As the mysteries (that no one really cares about) unfold, Cassie begins to learn the answers to what happened that fateful night weeks prior.There are some great films that have used the concept of "Everyone's dead and no one knows it." From 'Carnival of Souls' to 'The Sixth Sense,' it has been done well. 'Soul Survivors' cannot be included in that list. There's very little good about this film. Not everything is bad, but there are sometimes (especially in the horror genre) when outright bad can be more entertaining than just plain mediocre. Sadly, 'Soul Survivors' falls to the fate of simply subpar, below average, mundane, etc. The acting, while not awful, contains some of the worst performances of their careers from the otherwise talented cast. The story isn't awful and has worked before, but it failed to really do much here. The direction is average and takes very little risks. One element that DOES outright suck is the editing. Perhaps they were going for a choppy, muddled, and moronic telling of the story in order to make the film seem more dreamlike/nightmarish. . . but it was more annoying and awkward than dreamlike or nightmarish.Overall, if you're looking for a lame ripoff of 'Carnival of Souls' that fails in almost every way, check out this flick. If you want a quality film, just look at the several this one tries to be.Final Verdict: A generous 4/10.-AP3-

**MAJOR SPOILERS** The movie "Soul Survivor" comes across like a cross between "Caranvil of Souls" and "Jacob's Ladder" without the both surprising and shocking endings of the two ghostly thrillers.Cassie, Melissa Sagermiller, in trying to break off her relationship with her boyfriend Matt, Wes Bentley, gives him a good-by kiss which her now boyfriend and, what turned out to be, soul-mate Sean, Casey Affleck, notices. Mad at Cassie for two-timing him which Sean suspect her of doing he refuse to have anything to do with, or even talk to, her on the drive back to their dorms at Middletown Collage.With Matt and his new girlfriend Anna,Eliza Dushku, in the back seat Cassie loses control of the car and goes off the road killing her disgruntled boyfriend Sean. Recovering from both the accident and Sean's death Cassie soon starts to have hallucinations of Sean manifesting himself to her as a ghostly spirit somehow directing her to came back to him in the world of the dead! While all this is going on Cassie is constantly being stalked and terrorized by this masked lunatic, Carl Paoli, that only she and one else sees!Going to see the collage's Catholic Priest Father Jude, Luke Wilson, Cassie is told to keep the faith and let things just happen and the truth of what's happening to her will guide Cassie back to both God and sanity. It later turns out that Father Jude is anything but who he says he is in that he hasn't worked at Middletown Collage, much less lived there, since 1981!It's not that much of a secret to what Cassie find herself in since it's been done, in movies like "Carnival of Souls" and "Jacob's Ladder", many times before. It's the syrupy feel-good ending that blows you away in its trying to make everything right in the film which in fact screws everything up instead!Totally clueless to what's happening all around her Cassie starts to lose her mind feeling that she's somehow suffering from server brain damage resulting from the car accident that she's a survivor of. It's takes almost the entire movie for Cassie with the help of Matt & Anna, as well as Father Jude, to finally "get it"! But by then all she, as well as us watching the film, got was a confusing triple-twist ending and slitting migraine headache.Not much of a horror suspense movie "Soul Survivor" telegraphers every surprise and twist, with the exception of its final ending, in it far in advance before it ever even starts. As for the dead and ghostly Sean he comes across with his rosy cheeks and surf-boy tan more alive then anyone that's actually alive in the movie!

You may not be, but I certainly am thinking that I was going to get something extra with a R-rated "Killer Kut." When you make a PG-13 teenspoitation movie with the usual suspects (Melissa Sagemiller, Wes Bentley, Casey Affleck, Eliza Dushku, Luke Wilson) and put out a supposedly unrated or R version, you will not get anything more for your money. Stupid to think I would. I just got ripped by the makers of this trash.Yes, it does seem like a Carnival of Souls remake with some damn obnoxious music - a goth rave, for god's sake! It just seemed to go every which way and never made any sense. Needless to say, there wasn't much blood, and certainly nothing to make it R Rated.Be warned.